When God had made the irrational animals of the world, divided into three kinds, from the places of their habitation, viz. fishes of the sea, fowls of the air, and living creatures of the earth; and these again into cattle, wild beasts, and reptiles; he considers of making man, and the dominion he should have over the terrestrial world, ver. 26, and then he reckons up the inhabitants of these three kingdoms, but in the terrestrial leaves out the second rank חיה or wild beasts; but here, ver. 28, where he actually exercises this design, and gives him this dominion, the text mentions the fishes of the sea, and fowls of the air, and the terrestrial creatures in the words that signify the wild beasts and reptiles, though translated living thing that moveth, leaving out cattle. In both which places, though the word which signifies wild beasts, be omitted in one, and that which signifies cattle in the other, yet, since God certainly executed in one place, what he declares he designed in the other, we cannot but understand the same in both places, and have here only an account how the terrestrial irrational animals, which were already created, and reckoned up at their creation, in three distinct ranks of cattle, wild beasts, and reptiles, were here, ver. 28, actually put under the dominion of man, as they were designed, ver. 26, nor do these words contain in them the least appearance of anything that can be wrested to signify God’s giving to one man dominion over another, to Adam over his posterity.
And this further appears from Gen. 9:2, where God renewing this charter to Noah and his sons, he gives them dominion over the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and the terrestrial creatures, expressed by חרמש חיה wild beasts and reptiles, the same words that in the text before us, Gen. 1:28, are translated every moving thing, that moveth on the earth, which by no means can comprehend man, the grant being made to Noah and his sons, all the men then living, and not to one part of men over another: which is yet more evident from the very next words, ver. 3, where God gives every רמש “every moving thing,” the very words used, 1:28, to them for food. By all which it is plain, that God’s donation to Adam, 1:28, and his designation, ver. 26, and his grant again to Noah and his sons; refer to, and contain in them, neither more nor less than the works of the creation the fifth day, and the beginning of the sixth, as they are set down from the 20th to 26th ver. inclusively of the 1st ch. and so comprehend all the species of irrational animals of the terraqueous globe; though all the words, whereby they are expressed in the history of their creation, are nowhere used in any of the following grants, but some of them omitted in one, and some in another. From whence I think it is past all doubt that man cannot be comprehended in this grant, nor any dominion over those of his own species be conveyed to Adam. All the terrestrial irrational creatures are enumerated at their creation, ver. 25, under the names “beasts of the earth, cattle, and creeping things”; but man, being not then created, was not contained under any of those names; and therefore, whether we understand the Hebrew words right or no, they cannot be supposed to comprehend man in the very same history, and the very next verses following, especially since that Hebrew word רמש which, if any in this donation to Adam, ch. 1:28, must comprehend man, is so plainly used in contradistinction to him, as Gen. 6:20; 7:14, 21, 23. Gen. 8:17, 19. And if God made all mankind slaves to Adam and his heirs, by giving Adam dominion over “every living thing that moveth on the earth,” ch. 1:28, as our author would have it; methinks Sir Robert should have carried his monarchical power one step higher, and satisfied the world, that princes might eat their subjects too, since God gave as full power to Noah and his heirs, 9:2, to eat “every living thing that moveth,” as he did to Adam to have dominion over them: the Hebrew word in both places being the same.
David, who might be supposed to understand the donation of God in this text, and the right of kings too, as well as our author, in his comment on this place, as the learned and judicious Ainsworth calls it, in the 8th Psalm, finds here no such charter of monarchical power; his words are, “Thou hast made him, i.e. man, the son of man, a little lower than the angels; thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and the beasts of the field, and fowls of the air, and fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.” In which words, if anyone can find out that there is meant any monarchical power of one man over another, but only the dominion of the whole species of mankind, over the inferior species of creatures, he may, for aught I know, deserve to be one of Sir Robert’s monarchs in habit, for the rareness of the discovery. And by this time, I hope it is evident, that he that gave “dominion over every living thing that moveth on
